Miracle Fruit

This is the coolest thing I have ever seen and tried. It's a small fruit found in west Africa. Once eaten anything eaten subsequently with a sour or bitter taste will taste sweet. Yes it does work. My friend let me try one berry and it's crazy.

Because of its miraculous way of making things taste so good, the active protein found in the fruit was dubbed miraculin. A person has receptors on their taste buds that identify sweet, sour, bitter and savory tastes. Normally, if you were to eat a lemon or a lime, your sour receptors would start firing. But once you've eaten a miracle berry, however, the sweet receptors start signaling and suppress the sour tastes. The miraculin rewires the sweet receptors to temporarily identify acids as sugars. I've got to see what the chemical structure of this miraculin looks like.

This is the coolest thing I have ever seen and tried. It's a small fruit found in west Africa. Once eaten anything eaten subsequently with a sour or bitter taste will taste sweet. Yes it does work. My friend let me try one berry and it's crazy.

Because of its miraculous way of making things taste so good, the active protein found in the fruit was dubbed miraculin. A person has receptors on their taste buds that identify sweet, sour, bitter and savory tastes. Normally, if you were to eat a lemon or a lime, your sour receptors would start firing. But once you've eaten a miracle berry, however, the sweet receptors start signaling and suppress the sour tastes. The miraculin rewires the sweet receptors to temporarily identify acids as sugars. I've got to see what the chemical structure of this miraculin looks like.

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There are many things which alter the taste of whatever touches your tongue for a short time after.

I've read that the effect of this berry - or 'miraculin' - doesn't last more than an hour.

In any case, you can bet that there is a synthesized, man-made version of this, and that someone is making money off of it.

This is the coolest thing I have ever seen and tried. It's a small fruit found in west Africa. Once eaten anything eaten subsequently with a sour or bitter taste will taste sweet. Yes it does work. My friend let me try one berry and it's crazy.

Because of its miraculous way of making things taste so good, the active protein found in the fruit was dubbed miraculin. A person has receptors on their taste buds that identify sweet, sour, bitter and savory tastes. Normally, if you were to eat a lemon or a lime, your sour receptors would start firing. But once you've eaten a miracle berry, however, the sweet receptors start signaling and suppress the sour tastes. The miraculin rewires the sweet receptors to temporarily identify acids as sugars. I've got to see what the chemical structure of this miraculin looks like.

Click to expand...

The term rewires is incorrect, food molecules mix with saliva and selectively "dock" into the types of food receptors you mentioned causing a chain reaction of chemicals to be released initiating an action potential which travels to the brain.

Therefore, those neurons are not rewired...what may happen however, is that miraculin may occupy the sour receptors preventing molecules from "docking" or interacting chemically with the taste receptors. Subsequent eating of tastants which are sour cause these molecules to trigger the receptors for sweetness. Thus a sour tastant tastes sweet.

The term rewires is incorrect, food molecules mix with saliva and selectively "dock" into the types of food receptors you mentioned causing a chain reaction of chemicals to be released initiating an action potential which travels to the brain.

Therefore, those neurons are not rewired...what may happen however, is that miraculin may occupy the sour receptors preventing molecules from "docking" or interacting chemically with the taste receptors. Subsequent eating of tastants which are sour cause these molecules to trigger the receptors for sweetness. Thus a sour tastant tastes sweet.

Chauvalito: Why would blocking sour receptors have any affect on sweet receptors?

Very cool fruit, but not very practical. My neuroscience teacher discussed trying one. He and his friends went on a sour food binge. You can imagine why sour (often acidic) food in large quantities is not good.

Chauvalito: Why would blocking sour receptors have any affect on sweet receptors?

Very cool fruit, but not very practical. My neuroscience teacher discussed trying one. He and his friends went on a sour food binge. You can imagine why sour (often acidic) food in large quantities is not good.

Still, very interesting.

Oh, and illegal in the US sadly (IIRC)

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They're illegal here? But there's a guy in Florida that sells them. They're pretty darn expensive though. I also just found out that tablets with the active ingredient (miraculin) are also sold. I'm not sure if they are as good as the actual berry though. For 15 bucks I think it's worth a try.

edberg: Maybe I'm mistaken. Maybe it's just a ban on the use as an additive? Or maybe a ban on importing the fruit? Can't remember. I don't know why they would do it, apart from the sugar industry or other invalid reasons.

But it could be argued that sour stuff is sour for a reason, and making it taste sweet could be dangerous... For stupid people.